World to Come: The Baltimore Uprising, Militant Racism, and History

Bankole-Medina, a professor of history at Coppin State University, uses her participation in and chronicling of the Black Lives Matter movement to provide necessary perspective on the Baltimore uprising in the spring of 2015 following the death of Freddie Gray in police custody. Her series of essays draws upon history and political theory, and is informed by aspects of popular culture. This dual perspective is simultaneously problematic and fruitful: the book lacks the clear focus and objective tone that would be expected of a work of academic scholarship, but Bankole-Medina is able to situate Gray’s death and the resultant protest movement within a long and multifaceted history of African-American activism, the militarization of American policing, and race-based urban unrest. Bankole-Medina is not and does not pretend to be a neutral observer of American racial politics, and the “world to come” of her optimistic title is one that will be “free from anti-black racism.” Anyone curious about the longstanding social tensions that suffuse America’s cities and the particular responses of Baltimore’s residents, politicians, and law enforcement officials will find much here to think long, deep, and hard about. (BookLife)